Archives

Balance

Aug20

I got this question a long time ago and tried to answer it to the best of my ability. I wanted to think about it some more before posting, but I thought too long and couldn’t come up with a better answer.

Sometime I would love a glimpse into your daily life…how much time you give to reading and writing AND schooling your own children.

Do your children understand the time Mom gives to books and writing? Mine are 5-11 and I worry they see me staring at a book or screen more than anything else.

I have this theory that it’s important for children to see you doing something you love —for me that’s reading and blogging— at least some of the time. Not that I read and blog just to show my children how important those activities are, but I think for them to develop a love for reading, they need to see me reading. Engineer Husband Husband loves science and math, so as they see him doing science and math, they begin to enjoy those subjects, too.

My theory doesn’t do much to settle the question of how much time to spend on each activity. I spend a lot of time reading, but often I’m reading while sitting on the couch supervising schoolwork. I stop reading my book to read aloud to the urchins or to help with a math problem. Then, I take up where I left off in my book. I read while I eat lunch. I’m writing this post while eating breakfast, and the urchins are also eating breakfast, doing their morning jobs, and listening to Les Miserables. It’s sort of a juggling act, and sometimes I do it better than other times.

I don’t do housework very well, except in spurts of insiration which don’t occur often enough. We get school done, mostly, and I make meals, most days. All that means that I don’t have it all together, but I’m satisfied with the general way things are going. I only have the same worries as the questioner on alternate Mondays.

The Rule of Six, or Seven, or Eight, or Ten

Aug2

My Betsy-Bee asked me for a list of things to do today, and I thought again of Melissa’s Rule of Six. Melissa of The Lilting House has such a nice, simple list of “six things to include in your child’s day.” I’ve been meaning to use her list with my urchins, but I have such a cluttered mind that I keep forgetting the things on the list. SO, here it is, plagiarized but attributed, in which case I guess it’s just borrowed.

Six Things to Include in Your Child’s Day:
• meaningful work
• imaginative play
• good books
• beauty (art, music, nature)
• ideas to ponder and discuss
• prayer

Melissa even says that “Miss (Charlotte) Mason believed children needed three things every day: something to love, something to think about, and something to do.” So educator Charlotte Mason started with three things each day, Melissa made it six, and I’m making my own list of ????

I’ve been thinking about starting school next week, and I have a list of things in my head that I want to include in each day. These things fit into the six, but are more school/subject specific. I always make things more complicated than they need to be, but anyway here’s my list of things to include in our (school) days:

1. Meaningful work
2. Meals
3. Prayer and Bible reading.
4. Poetry
5. Good books
6. Mathematics
7. Beautiful art and music
8. Play or work outdoors
9. Imaginative play
10. Adventure

The ideas and discussion should flow out of these ten tasks. I know I always try to cram more into a day than is humanly possible, but please tell me that these ten things are possible, doable, and somewhat sane.

1. My children have assigned household tasks, that have been only loosely supervised this summer. We need to be more disciplined about the jobs.
2. Meal planning has been a little loosey-goosey this summer, too. I need to get a plan and a schedule.
3. We plan to have family prayer and Bible reading each morning at 7:00 AM so that my working/college kids can participate. It’s going to take some work to get us all up that early since we’ve been a bunch of ten o’clock scholars this summer.
4. We usually sing a hymn together at family prayer time, and I’d like to read a poem aloud each morning.
5. Not too hard. We are a reading family.
6. Math is the only school subject that I insist on getting done each and every day. I really think that for math proficiency, daily practice is essential.
7. I’d like for us to listen to this program each day on our local NPR radio station. It comes at about lunch time, so maybe we can listen over lunch. I’m not sure about the whole art thing, whether I want us to do art or look at art, or some combination of the two, but I’ll take suggestions.
8. We tend to stay indoors too much. I need more exercise, and the urchins need more nature. Maybe we should start nature journals again.
9. I think if we turn off the TV, the imaginative play will take care of itself.
10. Adventure. I must be open to taking the adventure that comes into each day, whether it’s a great adventurous field trip or a small adventure of exploring the nearest anthill. Adventures can’t always be programmed, but they can be recognized and enjoyed.

More posts about the Rule of Six:
Whence It Came
All Roads Lead to Rome (Especially for Bunnies)
Other people’s thoughts

Rules

Jul9

The Headmistress at The Common Room has a wonderful list of Rules My Mama Never Told Me I’d Have to Make. My favorite rule of hers: “Do not glue your Cabbage Patch doll to the floor. And not to Daddy’s flight jacket either. And don’t glue it to the couch. And not the chair. Do not glue that baby anywhere.”

And here are some rules my mama never gave me and never warned me about:

When constructing a toy cannon out of household odds and ends, do not use powdered red tempera paint for gunpowder on your mother’s bedroom carpet.

Do not urinate on the garden.

Do not eat a bottle of vitamins. If you do consume a bottle of vitamins, do not feed them to your two year old sister to disguise the amount of vitamins consumed.

Blue chalk is for drawing, not eating. (However, if you call Poison Control, they will tell you that it is probably not toxic.)

Do not put bologna in the computer CD drive.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, but judging from appearances, they are not: Books belong in the bookshelf; candy wrappers belong in the trash; and wet, dirty towels belong in the wash.

Flip-flops are not appropriate church attire. (I’ve given up on this one in order to save my breath for more important battles.)

Do not allow the (large) dog to sit on your baby sister.

Children should sleep in their own beds, not in their parents’ bed, not in the living room floor, not on the trampoline, not in someone else’s bed —in their very own beds.

Do not play tic-tac-toe with Sharpie marker on the wall. Do not play tic-tac-toe with Sharpie marker on the back of the new leather couch. Do not touch a Sharpie marker until you are eighteen years old, and then only with the written permission of both parents.

Mommy and Daddy are not substitute jungle gyms.

Picking up a snake at the nature center and bringing it to your mother to ask her to identify said snake is not a good idea. Especially if the snake might be a copperhead. Especially if the snake IS a copperhead.

Baby possums trapped in the trash can are not cute. They are likely instead to be vicious and rabid.

Kids’ Fiction About Foster Care and Homelessness

Apr30

Here are a few more recommended titles about these topics:

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. I read this book a l-o-n-g time ago. As I remember it, it’s about a wise-cracking foster kid and the foster mom who loves her anyway.

Homecoming and Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt. These two books are about homelessness and being abandoned by a parent who can’t cope, and about four resilient children who bring as much to their new home with their grandmther as she gives them.

Heat by Mike Lupica. I just read this baseball-themed book for the Cybil Awards, and I really liked it. It’s bout two boys, brothers, who’ve lost both parents, and are trying NOT to get caught up into the foster care system. Semicolon review here.

Alabama Moon by Watt Key. A boy raised in the wilderness by a survivalist father runs away from a foster care facility. Semicolon review here.

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. I’ve got to read this Newbery Award book soon. It’s about “Bud–“not Buddy”–Caldwell, an orphan on the run from abusive foster homes and Hoovervilles in 1930s Michigan,” according to Amazon.

The Pinballs by Betsy Byars. Three children in a foster home grow and learn to care about each other.

The Orphan Train series by Joan Lowery Nixon.
In The Face of Danger (Orphan Train Adventures)
A Place to Belong (Orphan Train Adventures)
A Dangerous Promise (Orphan Train Adventures)
A Family Apart (Orphan Train Adventures)
Keeping Secrets (Orphan Train Adventures)

Where the River Begins by Patricia St. John.

Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff.

Gossamer by Lois Lowry. Semicolon review here.

The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes.

The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Carlson Savage. This title is written for younger children, and it’s not as contemporary as the other books on this list, but definitely worthwhile. It’s the story of three children and their mother who must live under a bridge in Paris after they’re evicted from their apartment. It’s also about the old tramp who becomes their adoptive grandfather in spite of his determination not to get involved with any “little birds.” (children who steal your heart)

More book suggestions on this same topic at Fuse 8.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born February 14th

Feb14

Richard Owen Cambridge, poet, b. 1717. This article says he had “a penchant for writing verse and building boats.”

George Henry Kingsley, physician and world traveller, b. 1827. He wrote about his travels and also educated his daughter, Mary Henrietta Kingsley, at home and allowed her to help him in his scientific studies until his death in 1892. After her father’s death, Mary Henrietta became a world traveller in her own right, especially making several trips to Africa. She wrote Travels in West Africa about the animals, plants and people she encountered in her travels. She died in Africa nursing soldiers during the Boer War.

Graham Hough, literary critic and scholar, b. 1908. “The fact that poetry is not of the slightest economic or political importance, that it has no attachment to any of the powers that control the modern world, may set it free to do the only thing that in this age it can do —to keep the neglected parts of the human experience alive until the weather changes; as in some unforeseeable way it may do.”

George Washington Gale Ferris, engineer and inventor, b. 1859. He developed the Ferris wheel for the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Robert Lawson wrote a children’s fiction book called The Great Wheel that tells the story of this event. We read it aloud last year in our homeschool and found it to be a good story.

Paul O. Zelinsky, Caldecott award winner and creator of the book The Wheels on the Bus. b. 1953. He’s illustrated some beautiful fairy tale books. Rapunzel is the one for which he won the Caldecott Medal, and he’s also done versions of Rumplestilskin and Hansel and Gretel.

My Aunt Audrey, b. 19??. She was actually only my great aunt-by-marriage, and even that marriage ended in divorce. And she never was sure whether her birthday was on February 14th or 15th. It got recorded in the family Bible as one date and handed down verbally as the other. My Aunt Audrey was a character: soft and sentimental and at the same time, tough as nails. She and her second husband, Charlie, lived in Fort Worth for a good while, and they liked to go to the wrestling matches on Saturday nights. I never knew anyone else who did that. They collected salt and pepper shakers and were as poor as church mice, but Charlie took good care of Aunt Audrey, unlike her first husband, the one who was actually related to me. Husband #1 was an alcoholic who gave me my first taste of beer. He gave me a sip when I was two or three years old, and I spit it out at him. Served him right. I miss Aunt Audrey. My urchins would have gotten a kick out meeting her and Uncle Charlie.

Comparison and Contrast

Feb1

Judy Garland
Z-Baby, age 5: Mommy, you know, Alice in Wonderland is like The Wizard of Oz.

Me: Oh, really, how?

Z-baby: Well, they both have a girl. And the girl has all these friends. And the girl is trying to get home.
Alice

Me: And they both go to a strange place with lots of odd characters.

Z-baby: Yeah, and at the end it’s a dream. But Mommy, in The Wizard of Oz, what’s that thing on her forehead? She has a thing right in the middle of her forehead.

Me: I don’t know.

Z-baby: Maybe it’s an icepack.

Doe anyone else know about The Thing in the middle of Dorothy’s forehead?

Encouragement

Oct26

Brown Bear Daughter: Mom, you have to watch this movie and tell me whether you agree with us that it doesn’t even have a plot until three-fourths of the way into the movie!

Me: Why do you need me?

BB Daughter: Because i need to know if I’m right and if you agree with me because that’s how kids figure out stuff.

Me, thoughtfully: Oh, so you are listening. I’m encouraged.

Ways to Save Money

Sep3

Folks, we’re way over budget, and I’m looking for ways to save money. Here’s what I’ve found so far. Any other useful sugggestions will be appreciated and used and linked. Put your suggestion in the comments or give a link to it. If I can use it, I’ll link here. Don’t tell me to cut out the luxury items; as far as we’re concerned, we have no luxuries.

Flourescent light bulbs can save this much money? I never knew.

If you have any other really good money-saving tips, you could leave them here for poor little me and if you’ve blogged about them, you could also leave a link at Works-for-Me Wednesday at Shannon’s Rocks in My Dryer.

A Kid’s Eye View

Aug25

Hi! This is the Optimistic Idealistic Drama Queen, aka Brown Bear Daughter (age 11). Since it’s Take Your Kids To Blog Day, I’m here! Okay, so I just finished a book called Open Your Eyes: Extraordinary Experiences in Faraway Places. This is my review for it.

First of all, I have to explain. This book is made up of stories by authors about themselves. Nonfiction. I am usually not too interested in nonfiction, but as this was a school book, I didn’t have much of a choice. I actually thought it would be interesting, however, when I first looked at the jacket blurb.
Anyways . . . the authors who wrote the book are M.T. Anderson, Piper Dellums, Jean Fritz, Kathleen Krull, Lois Lowry, Harry Mazer, Susie Morgenstern, Elizabeth Partridge, Katherine Paterson, and Graham Salisbury.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I have to say that my favorite story was the one written by Jean Fritz. It was about her, as a preteen, in China where she spent most of the first thirteen years of her life as a missionary kid. I was especially interested in it because she was almost my age throughout most of the story.
It had a bit of language in it, but I kind of had to ignore those parts. Part of why I really liked it was because it was a book with lots of different stories, and it was not just one book. It was impossible to get bored with it because everyday I would start a new story, and then, if I had been bored before, I would get interested again.
Actually, I had only heard of a couple of these people before I read the book. The only authors I recognized were Jean Fritz, and Katherine Paterson.
Okay, I have to go! You should take advantage of reading a kid’s point of view of a book. Bye.